


You Dance With Who Brung You

by belmanoir



Category: Gunless (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:31:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean's never understood how he and Ben can be two such different ways with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Dance With Who Brung You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spuffyduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/gifts).



> I would like to thank my cheerleader and brainstormer mrs_laugh_track, without whom my creative life would not be possible, and my brilliant and thoughtful beta reader Queue, who strengthened the fabric of the story considerably. You guys are the best.
> 
> The story about Wyatt Earp and Johnny Ringo is not actually true, I borrowed it from the novel _Who Rides with Wyatt_ by Will Henry.

_1872_

Sean meets Ben not long after he kills his first man. The bounty on his head is still only five hundred dollars, and the wanted posters just say _Sean Rafferty._ He's in a saloon in some godforsaken town in Arizona, wishing the whiskey wouldn't take so damn long to work. He doesn't look up when a man sits on the stool next to his, doesn't look up when a hand slides a coin across the table. He notices the hand, though. It looks restless, and the thumb joint sticks out oddly.

"A whiskey for me, and another for my friend here."

Sean raises his head then. He looks into a boyish, fresh face: flat features, a prominent nose, and--he swallows--a wicked grin. "You're not my friend," he says. It comes out hoarse. Even his voice is different now.

The grin slopes and widens. "Well. Not yet."

Sean misses having friends.

They end up behind the saloon. That thumb's got a crazy slip-and-slide-and-twist on Sean's cock. Things are spinning a little, from the whiskey and the--relief, maybe? He doesn't know what this feeling is. He just knows that when Ben drops to his knees in the southwestern dust, it's everything whiskey promised and never delivered. His release, when it comes, is so intense that it's a few seconds before he processes the sound of the leg irons snapping shut.

He gets away, of course, a couple days later. He's too scared to go to a hotel anywhere nearby, so he sleeps under the stars with no blanket. That night he cries like he's leaving home all over again.

 

_1875._

They meet again, a few years later. Sean's done a lot of growing up in between. He can't really remember why he felt so damn heartbroken that first time.

They've been doing this a while now. It's become almost comforting, that sense that Ben is on his trail. He likes knowing that someone out there thinks about him, asks after him. Without that, he'd feel like a ghost.

Ben's never actually caught him since that first time, though. So even though Sean's neck's been prickling all afternoon, he's surprised when he hears the hammer go back and Ben says, "Put your hands up."

He doesn't put his hands up, though. He pulls his gun and whirls around. Ben laughs, an open-mouthed guffaw Sean remembers liking, and says, "Let's do this in the morning."

Their guns lie on the table by the bed, a silent reminder of what's coming. One or both of them might die in the morning. This might be the last chance Sean will ever have to be tender, or gentle. His last chance to see lamplight on skin.

Maybe Ben is thinking the same thing, because he doesn't argue when Sean kneels on the floor to pull his boots off. He doesn't protest when Sean strips off first the coat, then the jacket, then the vest, then the tie and shirt and trousers. He'd swear it's the same thing Ben was wearing when they first met. It's just gotten older, like Ben. Older and dirtier and meaner. There's a nasty edge to Ben's smile now, and there are fine wrinkles in his skin, like an apple starting to dry out when it used to be shiny and crisp.

But heck, Sean once looked enough like a kid to get the nickname. He doesn't think he looks much like one anymore.

Ben doesn't return the favor, just lies back on the hotel's dirty sheets with his hands behind his head and watches Sean undress. He doesn't laugh at him, though. He looks solemn, almost. And later, when Sean spits into his hand and tries to push his fingers inside, Ben says, "There's a bottle of sweet oil in my coat pocket. I use it to keep my scars soft."

When Sean gets it out, Ben spills some into his palm. He dips his finger in and traces the scars on Sean's arm, making the skin tingle. Sean tries to imagine cutting Ben's death into his skin, and can't. He might as well cut the whole damn arm off.

Then Ben smears the rest of the oil off his hand on his own hip and says, "You gonna shoot me in my sleep?"

Sean can't speak. He shakes his head. Ben tilts his head and stares, as if he can read the truth in Sean's face. Sean holds still, wondering what the hell else Ben can read. After a moment Ben grins and says, "Guess you do live by a code. Come on then, fuck me." And Sean does.

In the morning, they stand twenty paces from each other in the street. Sean looks at Ben and thinks, _I could miss._ But if he lets Ben go, just because Ben means something to him, what about the four men he's killed? They meant something to someone, too. It wouldn't be any kind of justice for him to play favorites.

His hand shakes, though. When he fires, the bullet doesn't hit Ben between the eyes. He can't tell _what_ he's hit, just sees blood everywhere and Ben doubled over clutching at the side of his head and cursing a blue streak. It takes him a long half-minute or so before he realizes Ben's shot missed him completely. Ben let him go.

Ben glances up, murder in his eyes, and Sean turns and runs. This is just one more place he can never come back to, now.

 

_1879._

It's like a game Sean can't admit he wants to lose. He can't forfeit, either, or throw the game, just has to keep playing on to the end in good faith. Self-murder is a sin, and he's never murdered anyone yet. He hasn't. What he does isn't murder, because he's always followed the code.

He makes sure Ben doesn't catch him up again. This time, he knows his hand wouldn't shake, and neither would Ben's. But all the while he's cursing Ben in his heart for being so damn stupid and predictable, for sweeping to the northwest every damn time. _I'm **here,** damn you,_ he thinks. _Come and get me._ Every bone in his body taps like a Morse key. Sometimes he wonders if Ben's ignoring it on purpose.

Their luck can only hold out so long. They run into each other in a town in Montana so small it doesn't even have a Post Office. Sean's just found out his father died two years ago. He sees Ben coming up behind him in the saloon mirror when Ben is only a couple of feet away. He can't look at the furrow in Ben's cheek or the stump of his right ear, but he can't look away either.

He's so drunk there's no way he can beat Ben to the draw--he can barely turn around on his stool--but his hand pushes his coat away from his hip clumsily, an involuntary gesture like the dead frog he once saw kicking at an electricity demonstration.

To his surprise, Ben still wants to bring him in alive. When Ben's boot sinks into his ribs, Sean tells himself the tears are from the pain. He doesn't even remember, later, how he got away.

 

_1881._

Ben points the revolver at Sean. The only thing that stops him from firing is Jack's bullet, knocking the pistol out of his hand. Sean hates everything about this moment, including himself. Ben tried to shoot a man who put his weapon down and surrendered. A few minutes back, he tried to hang an innocent old man.

Ben must have lived by a code too, once. Now he's rotten to the core. Everything is changing for Sean, but for Ben it's too late. And it's Sean's fault, for making Ben hate him. For secretly wanting this, Ben's bullet in his heart, for years. He still does. He wishes like anything Jack had kept his nose out of this, so Sean'd be dead and he wouldn't have to stand here and see what he's done.

Sean remembers a story he heard about Wyatt Earp. Seems when Wyatt was a boy he had a dog he loved more than anything, and when the dog took to killing sheep, Wyatt's Pa handed him a bullgun and said, _He's your dog, boy. Look after him._ Years later, when Wyatt had to put down Johnny Ringo, who he loved, he said, _He's my dog. I got to look after him._

Sean doesn't have the stomach to look after Ben.

 

_1882._

Jane's gone to the city for a few days to see an opera with Kent and Alice. Sean takes his chance to go for a long, long ride across the hills. It's one of the few things he misses from his old life.

He feels a prickle on the back of his neck, all of a sudden. But it can't be, that doesn't make any sense, so he ignores it and keeps riding. He keeps riding, and all the while the prickle on the back of his neck is getting stronger and stronger, until finally he comes over a rise and sees a rider bent low over his horse's back.

Then he can't ignore it any longer, because it's Ben. Sean's bones are tapping out Morse code again.

He should turn back, go into town and alert the RNWMP detachment, get someone to help him. There's people he owes it to to live. But he doesn't. Even through the sick feeling in his gut, he keeps riding. Once he wanted this, couldn't wait for it. Now the idea terrifies him. But that doesn't matter. It's an old saying, but a true one: you dance with who brung you.

He and Ben draw up next to each other. They nod. The silence stretches. "You here to kill me?" Sean asks, finally. The silence is like a knife cutting into his skin. He says goodbye to everything good, to the farm, to Jane, to the folks in town.

Ben shrugs. "I was aiming for Last Chance Gulch, but you know I sweep to the northwest since you shot off my ear."

Last Chance Gulch is two hundred and fifty miles away. Sean looks down at Ben's hands. They always look so restless, but they hold his mare steady without half trying. "I'm sorry about your ear."

"Sorry won't get me another ear."

He meets Ben's eyes. They're restless and steady too, and blue as the sky. Sean can't see the truth in a man's face the way Ben can. But if Ben was here to kill him, he'd have done it already. Sean feels like he's coming out of the river after being baptized, everything looking different and bright and as if maybe there's glory waiting for him. "I'd like to show you how sorry."

Ben's eyes narrow on his. "You mean you want to fuck?"

"There's no need to be crude about it," Sean says, not bothering to hide his smile.

"Won't the missus have something to say about that?"

Sean shrugs. "She's a very modern woman. The schoolteacher gave her a book on free love a few months back, and she made me read the whole damn thing." It made him feel old. It's not that he minds if she wants to stay overnight at the Kents' place a few times a month. But since when did someone who wanted a roll in the hay have to bring philosophy into things? And if they did, why did he have to _read_ it?

Ben looks suspicious on his behalf. "She doesn't want the vote, does she?"

Sean laughs. "Times are changing, Ben."

Ben shakes his head sadly. Then he grins. It's still his old wicked grin, even if it's a little more lopsided and spiteful than it was. "Race you!" He takes off towards the farm, whooping. He wins the race--Sean's horse is a farm horse now, and tired.

At the farm, Sean hesitates. He feels wrong bringing Ben into Jane's house. "Just a minute, I'll get a quilt," he says, and goes in to fetch it. Then he opens the door to the shed. "Leave your gun outside?"

Sean doesn't think he'll do it. But Ben tilts his head, gives him that piercing look, and then he shrugs and drops his belt with his holster and pistol on the ground by the door.

"You hungry?" Sean asks, grinning like a kid. "The strawberries are ripe, and Beth makes a strawberry-rhubarb pie you'd kill for." Ben laughs, and Sean's eyes sting. Nobody in Barclay's Brush understands how damn funny and sad a thing that is to say. Ben does, though.

"Maybe later," Ben says, and tugs off his dusty boots.

The dark blond hair on Ben's chest and belly is going gray. It shocks Sean, a bit. He wonders what's different about him, to Ben's eyes. They've been doing this for ten years. It's their first time without a gun within easy reach. He's never felt so naked.

They lie on their sides on the old quilt, Sean's back to Ben's chest. He doesn't expect Ben to be gentle, but he is. He's still got that bottle of sweet oil--a different bottle now, he says the old one broke in a fight--and he opens Sean up until Sean'd kill for a good fucking. He shoves back on Ben's fingers, and Ben just leans in and bites his ear, hard, to make him be still. For a second Sean thinks he's going to bite it off. It's a hot sharp feeling that runs right down his neck and shoulders and belly to his cock. He can feel Ben breathing harshly, almost wheezing.

Sean can make his body be still, but he never was much good at keeping his mouth shut. "Hey, if you're too old for a cockstand, I--" He gives a strangled laugh when Ben's teeth tighten on his ear.

And it works, Ben drives into him--but not hard enough to hurt. Sean's eyes sting again. He shuts them and gives himself over to this, to not thinking or wanting, to just _doing_. Just moving like his body tells him to. For so long--maybe because of Ben--this and a gunfight were all tangled up in his mind, tension and fear and waiting and serenity all in one, a bright moment of clarity, and then--

But it's not like that with Jane. It's bright and happy and easy, and he doesn't remember how to shut off his mind anymore, or his heart. He swallows the lump in his throat and reaches back to cover Ben's hand with his, where Ben is gripping his hip.

Ben goes still for a moment, and Sean wonders whether he's pushed things too far. But then Ben lets go of his ear and _kisses_ him, presses his mouth to Sean's neck and doesn't bite. He keeps his mouth there as he grunts and jerks and spends himself.

When Sean turns over to look at him, Ben is sprawled out on the quilt grinning. He looks at Sean's cock and then shrugs. "You want to do something about that, do it yourself," he says, and laughs. "And then bring me some of that pie." Sean forgot how smug and lazy Ben gets after a fuck. He laughs too, straddles Ben and frigs himself until he spurts onto Ben's stomach. Then he goes to fetch some pie, taking his clothes with him in case Ben decides to use them to clean up.

***

In the morning, Ben puts his dirty clothes back on, one piece at a time. "You could stay," Sean says. He can't help it.

"I'm no _farmer,_ " Ben says in answer as he slings his tie over his neck.

It's meant as an insult, but Sean smiles. He farms, therefore he is a farmer. "You could be. You could be whatever you want."

Ben shrugs and pulls on his boots. He reaches onto the floor for his gun before he remembers it's outside. For a moment, he looks uncertain. The expression sits oddly on his face. Then he grins and points at his ear. "Sorry, didn't catch that."

Sean's never understood how he and Ben can be two such different ways with each other. But he's starting to, maybe. It's like that poet Alice is always reading to them: _I am large, I contain multitudes._ "An apple goes rotten and a dog goes mean," he tells Ben, "and no one can change them back. But a man isn't good or bad inside. He's just what he does, and he can do something different if he likes."

Ben stands. "You always did worry too much."

"Think you'll be back this way?"

Ben shrugs. "Who knows? Four thousand dollars is a good ace up my sleeve." He laughs. Sean can't tell if he's joking--there's always been something pure and joyful in his laugh, and that never changed. He'd kiss you or kick you and his laugh would be the same. Like he just loved the way you moaned. But Ben's hand twitches in the air where he meant to rest it on the handle of his gun, and then he lays it quietly on his thigh.

"I'll watch for you," Sean says.

Ben laughs again. "No need to watch. You'll know I'm here before you see me."

Sean laughs too, sad and glad at the same time. "Reckon I will."


End file.
